Irish space-based AI company Ubotica Technologies has announced a partnership with Canadian orbit edge computing firm NOVI Space to process Earth observation data directly onboard satellites, eliminating the hours-long delays associated with traditional ground-based analysis. The collaboration, reported by Irish Tech News, integrates Ubotica's SPACE:AI platform with NOVI's GENIE multi-sensor satellite constellation and SP240 On-Board Computer.

Conventional Earth observation systems downlink raw imagery for ground processing, introducing latency of hours or days, a critical limitation in time-sensitive applications such as maritime surveillance. The partnership addresses this by enabling AI model deployment and execution in orbit, with SPACE:AI generating actionable intelligence within 90 seconds of acquisition without transmitting underlying imagery.

The approach reduces bandwidth costs, collapses processing latency and transforms each satellite from a passive data collector into an active analytical node. SPACE:AI has completed more than 100,000 in-orbit inferences across multiple deployed models. In one recorded observation of Singapore port, the system processed hundreds of vessels and identified those operating dark in under two minutes.

Dr Aubrey Dunne, co-founder and CTO at Ubotica, said: "By combining SPACE:AI with GENIE's onboard compute, we're shifting satellites from data collectors to intelligent agents, delivering insights in minutes rather than days."

Michael Bartholomeusz, CEO of NOVI Space, said: "AI at the edge is not a future concept, it's happening now. Partnering with Ubotica allows us to demonstrate the full potential of GENIE: delivering real-time intelligence from orbit, not just data."

The partnership underpins Ubotica's Live Maritime Intelligence service and is intended to open further operational models for time-critical surveillance applications.

Find out more about the Ubotica and NOVI Space partnership and its implications for satellite-based intelligence in the complete report.